Malpractice bill for 2003 proposed

Wednesday, Feb. 27, 2002 | 11:02 a.m.

The state's medical malpractice crisis headed for the 2003 Legislature Tuesday, when the first bill to address the issue was proposed.

State Sen. Ray Shaffer, D-North Las Vegas, submitted a bill draft request that limits liability for doctors and insurance companies while not imposing caps on total jury awards.

The bill proposal comes the week before a public hearing to address the crisis that was prompted when one of the biggest malpractice insurers in Nevada, St. Paul Cos., decided in December to stop offering medical coverage.

Other insurers have told doctors their premiums will be as much as tripled this year, causing many doctors to say they may have to leave Nevada because insurance premiums are becoming cost-prohibitive.

The hearing by Insurance Commissioner Alice Molasky-Arman will be 10 a.m. Monday in Carson City, with a telecast at the Sawyer State Office Building, 555 E. Washington Ave.

"This bill draft proposal is just a starting point -- the framework to help us reach a middle of the ground for the doctors, attorneys, insurers and injured people," Shaffer said, noting he expects other bills will follow. "I want to hear from all of the groups. I'm open for suggestion."

Veterans activist Ed Gobel, a disabled veteran whose research helped Shaffer get five of his six veterans bills passed last legislative session, helped research the proposed bill. "Some solution has to be reached to ensure adequate public health care," Gobel said.

The bill draft calls for actual damages to be determined by a "standardized table." Pain and suffering would be limited to an additional 10 percent of the actual damages award.

Punitive damages would be disallowed unless there was probable cause that the injury was either intentionally inflicted or was caused by gross negligence, the bill draft request says.

The proposal does not call for a cap on total awards, however, which doctors have proposed.

But the standardized table is, in effect, a cap, said Las Vegas attorney Dean Hardy, past president of the Nevada Trial Lawyers Association and co-chairman of the organization's political action committee Citizens for Justice.

"What you are asking someone to do with a standardized table is determine how much a limb is worth," Hardy said. "That's a problem, because a Major League Baseball player who loses a leg (because of malpractice) is not the same as a lawyer losing a leg. I can still do my job with only one leg."

Punitive damages are not an issue, Hardy said, because in the 22 malpractice judgments against doctors and medical organizations in Clark County since 1996, none has included punitive damages.

Doctors are not asking that patients who have been injured be blocked from seeking compensation, Larry Matheis, executive director of the Nevada State Medical Association, said.

"Our concerns are with the unpredictability of pain and suffering awards, which are so difficult to measure," Matheis said. "That's where we would like to see some controls in place."

Sun reporter Emily Richmond contributed to this report.